Crimson Oathbound

The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not the empty kind. The waiting kind. The kind that holds its breath and watches.

I opened my eyes to a ceiling of carved black stone, veins of gold running through it like frozen lightning. The air smelled of old magic and polished marble, with something underneath. Something metallic. Something that made my skin prickle.

I was lying on a throne.

Not sitting. Lying, like someone had placed me there while I was still figuring out how to have a body. The stone was cold against my back, hard enough to remind me that this was real. Whatever *this* was.

I sat up slowly. My hands moved when I told them to. My legs swung over the edge of the throne and touched the floor. I was wearing black robes I didn't remember putting on, and there was a ring on my finger. Silver band, red stone. Warm against my skin.

The room was vast. Pillars lined the walls, each one carved with figures I didn't recognize. Demons with wings. Angels with swords. Things that looked like people until you looked twice and realized the proportions were wrong. Torches burned in sconces, but the flames were blue. They didn't flicker.

I took a step. Then another. My boots made sounds on the stone, and the sound echoed into the dark spaces between the pillars.

That's when I heard the breathing.

Not mine. Someone else's. Multiple someones.

I stopped walking and turned in a slow circle. The room was empty. The shadows at the edges of the torchlight were thick, heavy, the kind of shadows that could hold a lot of things.

"I know you're there," I said.

My voice sounded strange in my own ears. Deeper than I remembered. Or maybe I just wasn't used to having ears yet.

The shadows shifted. A woman stepped out of them.

She was beautiful in a way that made my chest tighten. White dress that clung to her body like water. Black wings folded against her back. A halo, black and broken, hovering above her head like a crown of shattered glass. Her hair was the color of moonlight, and her eyes were golden, and she looked at me like I was something she had been searching for her whole life.

"Supreme Being," she said. Her voice was soft, reverent, and it trembled on the last word.

I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't know what I was. I didn't know where I was. But she was looking at me like I had answers, and I didn't want to disappoint her.

"I'm not sure I'm who you think I am," I said.

She smiled. It was a sad smile, the kind that carries years of waiting.

"You are exactly who I think you are. You feel like the Throne Room did when it was first built. You smell like the magic that raised these walls."

I didn't know what that meant. But she believed it. I could see it in the way she held herself, the way her hands were clasped in front of her, the way she hadn't blinked since she stepped out of the shadows.

"My name is Albedo," she said. "I am the Guardian Overseer of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. And I have been waiting for you."

"Waiting for what?"

"For a new voice. A new hand on the scepter." She took a step closer. Then another. She stopped when she was close enough that I could see the individual feathers on her wings. "Our creator is gone. He left us with orders and a purpose, but he left us alone. We have been running on memory for too long."

I should have been scared. A woman with wings and a halo and golden eyes, telling me I was some kind of god. But I wasn't scared. I felt something else. Something that sat heavy in my chest and wouldn't leave.

I felt like I knew her.

No. That wasn't right. I felt like I *should* know her. Like there was a memory I couldn't reach, a name on the tip of my tongue that I couldn't say.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

"Nothing you aren't willing to give." She tilted her head. "But there are others who will want more. Shalltear will want to test you. Aura will want to trust you. Mare will be afraid of you. And the others... the others will watch and wait and decide if you are worthy."

"And what do you think?"

She didn't answer right away. She looked at me, and her golden eyes softened. Her wings folded closer to her body.

"I think you are here for a reason," she said. "And I think that reason is bigger than any of us understand."

The doors at the far end of the room swung open.

A girl in a gothic dress walked in. Pink hair, pale skin, a smile that showed fangs. She carried a lance that was bigger than she was, and she dragged the tip along the floor like she didn't care about the scratches she was leaving.

"So this is the new one," she said. Her voice was light, playful, but her eyes were sharp. "I was starting to think you were a rumor."

"Shalltear," Albedo said. Her voice had gone cold. "You were not summoned."

"I don't need to be summoned to greet a new Supreme Being." Shalltear stopped a few feet away and looked me up and down. "Hmm. You're prettier than I expected. Most new arrivals are ugly. Too much raw power, not enough polish. But you... you have good bones."

"Thank you," I said. It felt like the right thing to say.

Shalltear laughed. It was a bright sound, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"I like you," she said. "That's dangerous. I like a lot of things that end up hurting me."

Albedo stepped between us. Her wings spread slightly, a barrier of black feathers.

"Shalltear. You will show respect."

"I am showing respect. I'm talking to him, aren't I? I could have just watched from the shadows and reported back to everyone else. But I came in person. That's more than you'd get from most of the Floor Guardians."

"Leave."

"Make me."

They stared at each other. The air between them felt thick, charged with something I couldn't name. I got the sense this was a familiar argument, one they'd had a hundred times before.

I cleared my throat.

"I appreciate the welcome," I said. "Both of you. But I've been awake for about five minutes, and I don't know where I am, what I'm supposed to do, or why I'm here. So maybe we can save the fighting for later."

Shalltear blinked. Then she smiled again, wider this time.

"He has a spine. Good. The last one was all orders and no personality." She turned and walked toward the door, her lance scraping against the stone. "I'll spread the word. The new Supreme Being is here. And he's interesting."

She disappeared through the doors. The sound of her lance faded into the distance.

Albedo turned back to me. Her expression was unreadable.

"You handled that well," she said.

"I don't know if I handled it at all. I just asked her to stop."

"That's handling it. Most people try to command her. She hates being commanded. You asked. That's different."

I looked at the doors Shalltear had gone through. Then I looked at the throne behind me. Then I looked at Albedo, standing in the blue torchlight, watching me like I was the only thing in the room worth seeing.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I said.

"None of us do," she said. "But we figure it out together."

She held out her hand.

I took it.